


Defender

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Loveless, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 13:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6117223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's the Sacrifice for Defender until the serum changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defender

**Author's Note:**

> Coyo isn't really in a fandom until she's done a Loveless crossover and turned somebody into a dragon. Woot! I am all in! \o/

Bucky's on an errand for his ma, minding his own business, when he feels the pull for the first time. He almost doesn't feel the tingle in his left arm, too distracted by the hook that's anchored itself behind his ribs, tugging so strongly it'd yank him right off his feet if it had any real weight behind it. He turns left though the corner store is on his right, breaks into a jog without thinking, and doesn't it make it three blocks before a whining ache starts up behind his ears, warning him of another Fighting pair. It's probably just another of the neighborhood bullies; his Name doesn't hate him enough to throw him in the path of adults, at least, but with a Name like Defender, he knows it's just a matter of time. The only question is why he's getting _pulled_ this time instead of stumbling into trouble like he usually does.

He hears them before he sees them, Carlisle jeering, "You try'na declare on us, Rogers? One whuppin' not enough for ya?"

"I can do this all day," another kid wheezes, his voice breaking on a cough.

Bucky doesn't stop, just tears around the corner and into the alley, shoving past Carlisle and his big, dumb Fighter to plant himself between them and a scrawny little punk sprawled on his backside. There's blood dripping down the kid's chin from a split lip and a busted nose, but that hasn't dimmed the fight from his eyes. Rogers' ears are pinned so tight to his skull, he almost looks like he's lost them already, except that he's tiny, maybe a year younger than Bucky.

"You fellas want a spell battle?" Bucky dares the other two, chin up, ears flat, tail lashing. "Go on and call it. I'm game."

Carlisle sneers, but Billings steps back, eyes sliding away to fix uncertainly on his Sacrifice. Bucky's fought them before, and even solo, he's always come out on top. "Better think twice, Barnes," Carlisle grits out. "Fighting _for_ a Sacrifice ain't the same as fighting without one, not when it's not your own."

He knows the stories, knows he's going to be bleeding by the end of this, but Carlisle's a real piece of work. Bucky won't regret it.

"He's got a Sacrifice," the Rogers kid pipes up all of a sudden. Bucky doesn't know what makes him reach out, but his left hand is caught in the other kid's right without him even looking. "He's the Fighter for Defender," Rogers adds, tugging as Bucky pulls, their hands still laced as Rogers comes to his feet at Bucky's side. "So unless you really do want a spell battle--"

They run.

Bucky grins as he turns, but it doesn't really hit him until he meets Rogers' eyes and just _knows_. This is his Sacrifice, the other half of his Name, the reason he finally felt the pull everyone talks about. His Sacrifice had needed him, and he'd dropped everything to answer the call.

"Wow," he says, staring at Roger's equally stunned expression, until he finally drops his eyes. He's finally seeing his Name's match on another person's skin, only...it's weird, isn't it? They've both got 'Defender' picked out in dark block letters on their left arms, only Bucky wears his inside out. They're in the exact same place, marching sideways along the inner bend of their arms from the middle of their biceps to an inch or so along the top of their forearms, but while Rogers' Name is facing him, Bucky's is facing away. They're a match, but they're a strange match. "So...you're my Sacrifice?" He doesn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but he was expecting...heck, he doesn't know what he was expecting.

Blue eyes narrow, the ears that had started to perk slicking flat again. "What?" Rogers snaps. "Don't think I can fight?"

"Whoa," Bucky says, holding on tight when Rogers tries to yank his hand free. "Of course you can fight. Sent those guys packing, din'tcha?"

"That was you," Rogers grumbles, shoulders hunching as his eyes slide away.

Bucky snorts. "That was _us_. I'm James Buchanan Barnes, by the way, but everybody calls me Bucky."

The tense hand clasped in his own slowly relaxes as Rogers glances back. "Steve," he says, eyes dropping to their arms once more. Steve smiles like he can't help himself, like he doesn't see anything weird about them at all. "And yeah. I guess I am. Your Sacrifice."

Weird or not, that may be the nicest thing Bucky's heard in his entire life.

***

Even though it's been years since their first meeting, Steve sometimes catches Bucky looking at their Names with a furrow of confusion creasing his brows. The look always smooths away whenever Bucky catches him noticing, and given half a chance, Bucky will swear long and loud that he'd taken one look at Steve and just _known_ they were a match, even before seeing their Names.

It takes a while, but Steve thinks he gets it, why their Names are the same but different. Bucky might have known, but Steve...he doesn't often get the things he needs, much less the things he wants, and Bucky is so much of both. Unlike Bucky, Steve just needs to see the proof of that now and then, or maybe all the damn time, and maybe that's why he doesn't mind standing on Bucky's left like a Sacrifice is supposed to. All he has to do is glance to the side, and there's their Name staring back, plain as day.

It's all he can look at when Bucky comes 'round a few days after his sixteenth birthday, earless and tailless, rubbing guiltily at the back of his neck.

"Sorry," Bucky mumbles as the silence stretches to something more painful than awkward. They're sitting on Steve's bed with a solid foot of space between them, not even their tails brushing, because--right. Bucky doesn't have his anymore. "But one of us had to do it," Bucky says to his hands, laced white-knuckled and hanging between his knees as he sits forward.

"What?"

"Couldn't have both of us losing our ears the same night," Bucky says with a helpless shrug, eyes wavering as they cut his way. "People would talk."

God, would they ever, and Steve _knows_ this, but...he'd just assumed. They've been everything to each other since they day they met, only maybe that isn't quite true. He'd had no idea Bucky was planning this, so what else doesn't he know? He knows Bucky likes looking at a pretty dame, and he's never minded, because he does too, even when Bucky's the only one he wants. He's always figured Bucky feels the same, because Bucky looks at him the same way, doesn't he? Only maybe...maybe it's not that simple. Bucky's a Fighter, after all. He's supposed to take orders, give his Sacrifice whatever he needs, look after him however he's able. Maybe this isn't simple at all.

"It's okay if we wait a little, right?" Bucky asks anxiously. "Just long enough for folks to see you still got yours. No one's gonna ask _you_ to kiss and tell if you wanna...you know. Later," he says with an awkward shrug and a tiny smile.

"Sure, Buck," he says with a faint smile of his own. "Later."

But they don't. He makes sure of it.

***

Part of Bucky's not certain how it happened, how he ended up with a 1A card and Steve didn't. The Army is thrilled to take on Fighting pairs, no matter what they look like--there are dames in uniform now, and not just the WAC girls--but Steve is apparently a bridge too far. 'You can fight solo,' they tell him. 'With a Name like yours, you'll be a natural. Both of you, even--there's plenty here at home worth defending.'

Part of Bucky is just grateful. He knows they're right, that the middle of a war is the last place for Steve.

He makes one last effort to set Steve up with a nice girl before he leaves, and this time he really tries. He's wasted too long hoping that Steve will magically wake up one day and decide that if he can't have the normal life Bucky knows he deserves, maybe Bucky's good enough. It's a hint he should have taken years ago, but he'd always thought they had time.

When the date falls through, same as every other one, he's not sure who he's more disappointed with: Steve's date for not seeing what he sees or himself for not getting it right, for being just that littlest bit relieved that _this_ won't be the girl that takes Steve from him.

He's never been so grateful to be rid of his ears and his tail. No matter what he tried to hide, the damn things always used to give him away, every time.

Steve's quiet on the morning Bucky ships out, his own ears stiff, scraggly tail clamped to his leg. He looks scared, and like he's got too much to say and can't get a word of it out, but they've already said everything they need to. Bucky just wraps him up in a hug, there in their ratty old apartment so Bucky doesn't embarrass himself at the dock, and he noses along the soft velvet of Steve's ears just in case it's the last time. Steve's sure to find someone once Bucky's out of the picture, and Bucky promises himself he'll be happy for them when he gets the news.

"You make sure to write, okay?" he says, standing back and holding Steve at arm's length, hands cradling the fragile bones of Steve's shoulders. He's not expecting Steve's expression to settle into that mulish determination he knows so well, for Steve to fist one outsized hand on Bucky's tie and haul him down.

Muscle memory kicks in before his brain can catch up, and he leans in too far too fast, like he's done with all his dates but one, and presses his lips to Steve's brow. Christ, he loves this kid, but he's not going to let Stevie do something stupid just because he's going off to get shot at. He's a bastard, but not that big a one.

Steve slumps, throat working so hard Bucky can hear him swallow, and his hand slips off Bucky's tie to land on his arm, right over their Name. "Just make sure you stick around to get 'em," Steve says, his voice thick.

"Always," Bucky promises as he straightens, turning to fetch his hat so he doesn't have to look at Steve. This can just be another thing they don't talk about, like that stupid offer he should never have made all those years go, that's been hanging between them ever since. Maybe the distance will be good for them. "Stay safe."

"'Course," Steve says, but it's Steve. Bucky doesn't believe a word of it.

***

The science team doesn't care that Colonel Phillips thinks he's a failure--not him personally, Steve has to keep reminding himself, just the project that transformed him. They run test after test, gauging his strength, his speed, his endurance. They take what feels like gallons of blood, then they measure how quickly he bounces back from that when they realize he's unusual in that respect, too.

"Uh, I have a Fighter," he reminds the head doc as they're comparing a photograph of his Name to the mark on his arm, trying to determine whether it's grown in size or stretched or shrunk, if there's any difference at all. "I wasn't deployed with him before because of my physical condition, but now--"

The doctor looks up, distracted, his eyes a million miles away. "We'll certainly do tests," he says, which Steve doesn't think answers the question at all. "If your talent as a Sacrifice has become stronger as well...."

There'd been talk _before_ about pulling Bucky off the front lines if all went well, about giving him the same serum and creating the first enhanced Fighting pair. Steve will settle for being allowed to fight with him, now that he can. If he has to suffer through another round of tests before that can happen, he'll do it.

It doesn't go the way he expects. The other pair's Fighter goes easy on him, visibly upset about fighting a solo Sacrifice, and chucks a harmless rain of pebbles his way instead of the boulders he's meant to be conjuring. Steve could dance out of the way, but it's a _spell battle_ , and for just one moment he forgets Bucky's not there to listen for his orders.

"Deflect!" he yells and

_a_

_shield_

_goes_

_up...._

There's pandemonium as the battle sphere goes down and the other pair's Sacrifice yells, "He's a Fighter!" Steve stands in blank shock as the doctors converge around him, his right hand slowly coming up to clutch at his Name. He can't be. He can't. He already has a Fighter.

He's never felt so alone in his life.

***

Hydra muzzles him when they find out what he is, which doesn't take long, because Bucky's not going to keep his trap shut if he can take some of the heat off the others. They do him one favor with that: when he's taken back to Zola's lab, when they stick him full of needles and pummel him with spells he can't even translate to brace against, he can scream all he wants without worrying about spilling any intel. Only problem is, he's not sure information's even what they're after.

He's between sessions, slurring nonsense between teeth clamped shut, when the door creaks open and the weirdest hallucination yet comes pushing in. It's Steve, only not like Bucky's ever seen him, and he swears he's here to get Bucky out, and it's--it's a spell, it's gotta be, a trick to make him sloppy and stupid, but he goes along. Even when the fake Steve rips the muzzle right off him, he keeps his teeth clenched tight on his words and follows along, because it's Steve. It's Steve.

And it is. Somehow, some way, it _is_ Steve. Bucky can't feel the pull, but if anyone's tugging on the bond between them this time, it's probably him.

Or that's what he thinks until he suggests pulling up a battle sphere and taking a few shots at the enemy. The way he's feeling right now, he could wrap up this whole damn base and have room left over for the sentries.

"Buck," Steve cuts in before he can really get started, something brittle in his eyes. "I'm--I'm not a Sacrifice anymore. I've still got our Name," he says quickly, practically tripping over his words, "but the...the process that changed me, it--I'm a Fighter now."

"Oh," he says dumbly, feeling the blood drain right out of him. That...makes an awful lot of sense, really. Why their Names are the same but never quite matched up. It happens sometimes; with however many billion people in the world, there's going to be some overlap.

"We can still fight together," Steve insists, eyes pleading. "Just...solo, I guess."

"Yeah," he croaks and swallows hard, trying for a more natural tone. "'Course we can. Sure." Steve's on to something there, and it's just until Steve finds his Sacrifice, right?

Except that every time Bucky tries, his Name bleeds. The letters fill with enough blood to soak his sleeve, every damn time, so that he has to keep a bandage wrapped around them constantly. Now that he knows he's made a mistake, his Name can't be tricked, and though he tries his best to think of his faceless, nameless Sacrifice when he wades into a spell battle, he can't stop thinking about the skinny punk he grew up with.

It's a long, long march back to friendly territory, and it only gets worse when he sees the dish that's waiting for Steve when they get back. She's gorgeous, confident in the way only someone completely comfortable with handing out orders knows how to be, and though he tries out of habit to distract her, it's clear she's only got eyes for Steve.

He nudges Steve when she's gone, remembering his promise to be happy and pulling a smile across his face. "So what's her Name?" he asks, quirking a brow. "She's a Sacrifice, right?"

"I--I don't know," Steve stammers, giving him such a hunted look, Bucky backs off with a quiet chuckle.

"You really gotta learn how to talk to 'em, Steve," he chides, not sure this time whether he means girls or Sacrifices. Either. Both. Only maybe it doesn't matter. When the right one comes along, she'll probably fit the bill all across the board, and that'll be that.

Until then Bucky can just keep everything under wraps, literally and figuratively, and keep watching Steve's back he way he always has. A Name's a Name, and theirs are accurate, even if they're not the same.

***

It's just a debriefing-- _Phillips_ was there, for God's sake--but the fellas still tease him when he comes back, knowing Peggy was there too. "Still got your ears, Cap?" Dum Dum calls with a sly grin as Steve ducks into the barracks. "Really?"

"I dunno," Morita says, shaking his head. "They could be fake. Someone pull on 'em, just to be sure."

"Pipe down, you guys," Bucky cuts in, smiling but with a hint of warning clear in his voice. He's cleaning his rifle again, which maybe helps a little with how quickly the teasing stops. "Carter's far too classy for the likes of Rogers without a ring involved, and her ears are _way_ too classy for the likes of you to be discussing, no matter how many rings you throw at 'em. 'Sides, I'd rather hear the real gossip, like where they're sending us next."

Steve shoots him a grateful look, but Bucky's smile doesn't reach his eyes. They mostly don't these days, a change that's just not _Bucky_ , the way he's usually focused on his rifle, preferring that to spell battles despite being born with a silver tongue. Steve knows Bucky's having a hard time of it, that twenty years of habit means Bucky thinks of _him_ and not his real Sacrifice, and bleeds for it. It makes him feel so damn guilty, because he's in the same boat, only maybe it's the serum, or maybe it's the fact that he's thinking about another Fighter, but he doesn't get even a prickle of discomfort for it. It's almost like the serum flipped everything on its head, and now it's Steve who's got everything easy, Bucky who's got the chips stacked against him. Steve has no idea how to balance that out.

He doesn't want to think that maybe that's not his job anymore, that there's someone out there who's not him just waiting to make things right. He's not going to think about that at all.

He wishes they'd stop teasing him about Peggy, though. She's amazing, sure, and he likes her a lot, but she's not the one he wants. And it _really_ bothers Gabe, though he's careful not to show it.

"Right," he says, straightening his shoulders. "We just got word of a train...."

***

When Bucky wakes, he knows something's wrong. Everything hurts, and he's cold, and there are voices babbling, but he can't make out the words--but that's not the feeling of wrongness that throbs through his skull. He looks down at himself, sees he's being carried, but he doesn't recognize the faces. Maybe the uniforms. Are they Russian?

He tries to ask, but his mouth won't open, not even a little.

Muzzled--he's been muzzled again, only what--why would they--they're allies, aren't they? Panic stirs sluggishly, but when he tries to struggle free, pain nearly sucks him under again. It's everywhere--his ribs, his back, his legs--but his left arm is the worst, and when he looks--

He stares, blinks, and stares again. That's not his arm. That can't be his arm, because that's not his Name. It's...he's missing. Parts. The 'D' on his forearm, the 'E' and 'F' that bracket the bend of his elbow: gone.

He's not what it says, because that's not Ste--that's not _him_.

When the darkness wells up again, he lets it take him.

***

"Will you be all right?" Peggy asks, eyes dark with concern.

Steve wants to say 'yes, of course' and put on the brave face expected of him, but he's afraid if he opens his mouth, it'll all come tumbling out. How much he misses Bucky, and why, and how stupid he's been for the last ten years, and how he thinks he's going crazy because he swears he can still _feel_ him. Only it can't be Bucky, because Bucky's dead. It's got to be his Sacrifice, the one he was meant to have--or, God help him, the one _Bucky_ was meant to have, only Fate somehow knew and waited until now to let him feel the pull.

But he doesn't want it. Not if it's not Bucky. They're not just cogs that can be replaced.

"Yeah," he says at last, and Peggy's kind enough not to call him on the lie.

He doesn't tell her about the pull. He doesn't tell anyone about the pull.

They won't let him fight if they think he's lost his mind.

***

The head doctor is Russian, but he speaks flawless English. "'Ender'," he says, drawing a finger down the truncated line of Bucky's left arm. Bucky shudders, but he's strapped down again, and there's no way to shake the bastard off. "How charmingly apt."

They leave the muzzle on, feeding him through a tube in his nose. He couldn't have kept down solid food anyway, not with the pain as bad as it is, but they give him no anesthetic, even when they work on his arm. "Consider it training, my boy," the head doctor says. "You'll soon toughen up."

He knows it's stupid, but he spends his days screaming his fool head off for Steve, and he swears, _swears_ he's being heard. It keeps him going through the operations, the tests, the heavy-handed attempts at training him like a dog, until he wakes on a table a few weeks later to find the presence in his head has become an absence. For the first time in twenty years, he is completely, terrifyingly alone.

He tells himself he's wrong, that he's just confused. The last thing he remembers, they were cutting on him again--he must have passed out, and look, his head's so scrambled they haven't even strapped him down--and he raises his hands and--

He. He has. There's...a second hand. A second arm, metal, all the way up to his shoulder. He turns it over to peer at the palm and then can't help himself--he glances at the arm, half-hoping to see his old Name, but the block letters marching up the swell of his fake bicep read 'Ender'.

"You're awake," a doctor says in heavily-accented English. "Good, good. Does the arm--"

He reaches out serpent-quick and grabs the man by the throat, rage searing through him. He means to live up to the Name they gave him until he can scrape it off himself, and he--

\--flinches as a needle slams home in the meat of his thigh, lethargy creeping swiftly over him as the doctor and his assistant claw at metal fingers until they loosen. He wants to curse his stupidity, because the doctors aren't important-- _Steve_ is important, and why can't he feel him? Where did he go?

He holds onto the hope that Steve's absence is just a fluke, but when he wakes again, nothing has changed.

***

The muzzle stays on for a long, long time. They tame him, train him, give him drugs and the chair. They give him many lessons: how to move unseen, how to kill in more ways than he knew existed, how to fight past his limits until the mission is done. They give him languages, but by the time the muzzle is removed, he has no interest in speaking. He's never needed it to complete his missions; they tell him what he needs to know and turn him loose. A grunt, a look, a gesture: these suffice.

"He was a skilled Fighter once," the controller says to his handler. "Throw him into a spell battle; see if that jogs his memory."

Spell restraints settle around his neck and drape over his shoulders in chains as thick as a winter cape. He wades through them and breaks two necks despite the rain of ice and stones hurled after him.

The controller rages; an old, frail tech known as Zola is consulted.

"He's a Sacrifice now, you idiot! How the hell did that even happen?"

"The suppression of self," Zola stammers, nervously cleaning wire-framed glasses, his face baffled. "As a side-effect of the memory techniques, it may have...."

"You don't know," the controller accuses, disgusted.

"But I would very much like to study it."

"Out," the controller growls, glancing sharply at the guards. They settle their hands on the old man's shoulders and lead him away. The controller turns back to the soldier.

The soldier waits.

"So. You're a Sacrifice?"

The soldier waits.

The controller shakes his head. "Pair him with a solo Fighter. Let's see if he can make himself useful that way."

"But...his Name?" his handler asks, jerking his head towards the soldier's arm. "He's not going to match anyone we put him with."

"There's no arm under there to bleed. He'll be fine."

He is fine.

He kills every Fighter they put him with. It's the one instinct they can't erase or train out of him, stronger even than his hatred of the techs.

They give him work instead, give him teams he's expected to manage. If they're trying to coax him into speech, they fail. He neutralizes the incompetents that try to slow him down, and the ones that remain are men like him; they need little direction. A word or two is enough.

Sometimes he traces his Name with the tips of his human fingers, but there's no real feeling behind it. It's calming, that's all. The techs have all sorts of theories about what his Name means, mostly relating to the work he does now. They may be correct, but it's not what the Name means to him. He remembers that he got his Name in silence, though he remembers nothing else. He was wordless then, and the echoing stillness inside his head had said nothing back. Even now there's nothing but absence wrapped around it, a dropped phone with no one on the other end.

He touches his Name and thinks of emptiness, of holes and gaps, things missing and snatched away. The silence comforts him. It reminds him of the cryochamber, of the cold, of sleep.

***

Steve wakes to the sound of a baseball game that's just a subtle wrongness in his ears at first, and to an emptiness inside his chest that's a blessed relief. The pull is gone, not dead but dormant, and it doesn't feel like Bucky anymore. It's the best he could have hoped for, and he lies there for a full minute basking in the knowledge that he's not actually crazy before what he's hearing on the radio finally catches up to him.

Later, after he's given the shock of his life and handed an explanation he can barely wrap his head around, he stops Fury before the man can leave.

"Did, uh...did anyone ever come forward as Captain America's Sacrifice?" he asks, not certain he wants to know. He understands now why the pull has gone dormant; after seventy years without an answer, it's no wonder Defender's Sacrifice has stopped calling. It's amazing they're still alive at all.

"Not that I ever heard," Fury says with a speculative look, "but I can have someone check into it if you want."

"No," Steve says quickly. "No, it's--it's been so long...."

Fury nods when Steve goes silent, expressionless but not judgmental. "Up to you, Cap," he says, and Steve gets the feeling he means it. He doubts it will keep Fury from looking into it himself, but if Steve doesn't ask, he never has to know.

***

When the soldier wakes, he learns he's been asleep for three years. For such a short interval, there are many things to learn: advances in security measures that will need to be taken into account, new weapons and strategies to master, reworked alliances he needs to be briefed on lest he run into other operatives in the field. He's trained to absorb information in a hurry, but this time he's distracted.

His Name has changed. It...itches, or prickles, which is impossible, as his arm hasn't been programmed to feel such things. When he concentrates on the Name itself, instead of the calm peacefulness of sleep he feels the hum of constant motion, almost like it's begging to be noticed. He doesn't know what to make of this, so he ignores it. He needs to concentrate. The sooner he learns what he needs, the sooner they will give him a mission.

The sooner he completes his mission, the sooner he can sleep. He always feels closer to his Name when he sleeps.

***

It always seems to surprise people that Steve still has his ears. Seventy years after the fact, he finds out he's been painted without them in most of the propaganda posters, that they've been airbrushed out of most of the wartime photography and footage. There's even a book dedicated to the phenomenon, appropriately--or inappropriately--titled _Captain America Loses His Ears: The Reimagining of an American Legend_.

Tony Stark sends him a copy as an apartment-warming gift. The book does him one favor, at least; it fills him in on Peggy and Gabe before he can go see her and stick his foot in it.

The book has a lot to say about Peggy and how her status as Captain America's sweetheart had nearly lost her the Fighter and husband Steve had inadvertently saved. Gabe had been one of those rare Fighters who showed none of the symptoms, not even a Name, until he met his Sacrifice, and then he'd hung back because he'd thought Steve and Peggy had a thing. Not every pair is paired romantically; Gabe couldn't have known for sure.

As far as Steve can tell, people still think that. They tell him they're sorry for his loss, even though he still has her, they're still friends, and she's not the one who--

He doesn't get the future, and there's a small, stubborn part of him that's absolutely fine with that.

***

The missions come thick and fast. The soldier fails at first to kill the man named Fury, but it only takes time and patience to correct that mistake. While occasionally forced to retreat, he has never failed to complete a mission.

He reminds himself of this as he returns to base, his newest mission objectives not dead but neutralized. He'd watched from a nearby rooftop as Hydra's covert agents took Captain America and the Black Widow into custody, along with their unknown ally. Even so, he feels unsatisfied. There's a nagging sense of something left undone whenever his mind turns to the Captain, which is often. There is something strange about him, something...familiar.

The Captain is a Fighter, the soldier reminds himself. He's been sent after Fighters before. Some have even tried to engage him in a spell battle, but he has never seen a battle sphere _fail_ before the way the Captain's had, over and over, as if it couldn't get a grip on him or he presented the wrong kind of anchor. Perhaps the Captain is simply--

\-- _weak_ \--

\--but he knows, right down to his bones, that this has never been true. It's something else, something to do with the name the Captain called him, not the one etched into his arm, but something that hammers on the brittle walls inside his brain until they threaten to crumble. He doesn't like the feeling, but he's not sure he wants to report it. He's left...something very important undone, something that tugs on his ribs and buzzes inside his head like the intrusive thoughts of the Captain. If he tracks it down, he can make it stop, make it all stop. He just doesn't understand why it's so important that he go, go now, before it's too late.

He bats the techs away from him when they try to distract him from his thoughts. They aren't the one he needs. Neither is the controller, but when he walks into the room, the soldier stills. The controller understands. He sees the big picture, and he gives the soldier clear orders, which are all a soldier needs. The controller will help, if the soldier can find the words.

He has to try.

"There was a man on the bridge," he says as the controller narrows his eyes. "I--"

_I felt a pull._

"I knew him."

***

"It was him," Steve says in a daze, staring blindly at the floor of the armored van. He flexes his arms in the mag cuffs, escape only half on his mind. Mostly he wants to push back his sleeve and check to see if his Name is still there. "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

He almost, almost wants that to be true, because if Bucky did know him, if he knows just how badly Steve has let him down--

He hadn't been crazy at all. It hadn't been grief messing with his head; it was _Bucky_ calling to him, and he'd ignored it. And then he'd slept for seventy years and left Bucky all alone. Whatever happened to make him like this, to turn him into the Winter Soldier--

"How is that even possible?" Sam asks, skeptical but game. "That was, like, seventy years ago."

"Zola," Steve says glumly. He'd known even then that he should have pushed for more answers, but on top of everything else piled on them at the time, he'd thought he was doing Bucky a favor by letting him work things out at his own speed. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must've found him and...."

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha cuts him off, her words pain-slurred but deliberate. "If it really is your friend. The Winter Soldier--he's not a Fighter," she says over his quick inhale. "He's the Sacrifice for Ender."

Horror turns his insides weightless as Natasha's glazed eyes widen, realization striking them simultaneously. "They cut me out of him?" he asks helplessly, voice cracking. And how--how had Bucky been turned into a Sacrifice? What did they _do_ to him?

Steve knows one thing, and that's that he's going to make this right. This time he knows better than to stop listening, even if the person calling after him doesn't feel the way he remembers. He's not going to stop tugging from his end, either, even if it's not technically a Fighter's place. Playing by the rules has never done either of them any favors.

He takes the need, the loneliness, the simple longing to have Bucky by his side and every kind of love he knows, wraps metaphorical hands around the bond that's tied them together since the day they met, and pulls for all he's worth.

***

The soldier has a mission, but it feels like a trap. _Find this man_ , the controller tells him, but the soldier could hardly lose him. There's a pull that carries him onward, that drags him when he's in danger of faltering, and it's leading him right to his target.

He tears through enemy pilots to maneuver himself into position, throws the Captain's ally off the edge of a ship after breaking his wings. He tries throwing the Captain off as well, but he doesn't hit hard enough or fast enough, his target finding a handhold instead of falling.

He's never had failure become a _habit_ before, but he has the pull, and he follows it to the depths of the helicarrier in time to meet the Captain face to face.

The Captain's look is strange. He stares at the soldier like he's something good, but also like the very sight of the soldier pains him. The soldier has seen pleading in men's eyes before, but never quite like this. "People are gonna die, Buck," the Captain says, oddly apologetic. "I can't let that happen."

The soldier could attack now, but something makes him hesitate. He should...he should be guarding something, he thinks. The ship? The machinery at his back? It's hard to think past the throb of compulsion compressing his ribs, telling him to get closer, right under the Captain's guard, under his _skin_ , where he--

\--belongs?

"Buck," the Captain begs, but then he holds out his left arm, his shield arm, reaches cautiously for his sleeve, and begins to tug.

Letter after letter is bared as the Soldier's eyes go wide--'R' on his forearm, 'E' right above it and 'D' just above the bend of his elbow, 'N' where the rise of his bicep begins and 'E' riding the swell of muscle. They're written in the same block type etched into the soldier's arm, but they're not...that's not what should be there, that's not--not St--that's not _him_.

" _Liar!_ " bursts from him so furiously he feels his throat tear at the force of it. He charges the Captain, strategy be damned, putting all his strength into every blow. It's a lie, a lie, a _lie_ , and he can't, he _can't_ , that's not _right_.

"Buck!" the Captain coughs as the breath is knocked from him by a punch to the gut. "Buck, wait, you're not--" The soldier backhands him with the metal fist; blood sprays from the Captain's split lip. "You're not what they told you," the Captain shouts as he staggers back, lifting the shield at last. "You were the Fighter--"

"I'm a Sacrifice!" he shouts, drawing his sidearm.

"You were _my_ Fighter, before--"

" _I'm a Sacrifice_!" He can't--he can't be that, because a Fighter...a Fighter's not what's needed, and he--

He fires once at the shield, but he isn't a fool. The first shot was to make the Captain duck; the second bullet goes through the man's thigh. It slows the Captain down, but it doesn't stop him, and they trade furious blows after the gun is knocked from the soldier's hand, until they both topple over the edge of the platform they've been fighting on. He struggles hard as he feels the Captain's halting battle sphere go up once more, hears " _Sleep_ " breathed against his ear in the second before the sphere collapses.

He collapses with it, spiraling down into the dark. He fights tooth and nail, incredulous, because there's never been a spell that could touch him, never been a restraint that could hold him. Clawing back to wakefulness, he lurches upright in time to see the Captain scramble back up onto the platform, a dozen feet from his goal.

The soldier draws the last of his guns, fires, and feels the echo of the bullet slam home in his own flesh.

He staggers, but that's...that's not possible. Except...if this is the Fighter for Ender....

_No_.

He lifts his weapon, sights along his arm, and fires again.

He's rejected every Fighter they've tried to chain him to. He won't...he won't let them win.

But the Captain doesn't stay down, doesn't stop, and he shoots again--

It hurts. The soldier is used to pain, but this is worse. It's a wrongness that twists his stomach in knots, the world swaying under his feet. He aims at last for a head shot, a kill shot, but his hand, his left, his _metal arm shakes_ , and he can't--

He's on his knees even before something slams into the ship like the side of a giant's fist, sending it rocking in midair. The blows come again and again, glass shattering all around as dull booms rocket through the corridors above. The helicarrier shudders, lurching sideways as the closest turbine drops out of alignment with a screaming whine. A giant steel support just misses the soldier, crashing down mere feet from where he crouches, panting like a wounded animal.

He can still feel the Captain's pain, in thigh and shoulder and belly, and even if it kills him, he has to make it _stop_.

Growling under his breath, he forces himself up and takes a running leap at the same supports the Captain had climbed, clawing his way up to the catwalk above. The Captain is still sprawled where he collapsed after finishing his own mission, and he watches the soldier come with a calm-eyed acceptance the soldier finds infuriating. What does he think, that the soldier will go easy on him? Does he think he can just _give up_?

Drawing a knife, the soldier drops down to straddle the Captain's splayed thighs. Fisting a hand in the still-rumpled cloth of the Captain's sleeve, he slashes at the thick material with a snarl, clenching his bared teeth all the harder when the Captain simply lets him do it. He's going to cut out that Name, that lie, carve it right out of the Captain's skin, and then--

The material is tough but old. It shreds when he tears at it with both hands, baring more than he expected to see.

The Captain's Name...is not what he thought. It's not Ender.

The soldier touches two fingers to the spaces between three letters and shivers.

This...this is...this is the Fighter for Defender.

The Captain smiles, half-dazed at best. "Y'see, Buck?" he asks, voice strained as he reaches up and catches at the soldier's left arm. "Don't believe what you read...unless you're lookin' at the whole picture."

His own Name has always meant an absence to him. Holes, missing pieces, things snatched away.

"I'm a Sacrifice," he says dumbly. He can't be...what the Captain said. They wouldn't--it doesn't fit.

"Then be mine," the Captain says, glassy eyes slowly falling shut. "You and me, right? 'Til the end of the line."

He stares as the Captain passes out, hand going slack on the soldier's arm but not quite falling away. It feels like it belongs there, like _he_ belongs there. It doesn't make sense.

The ship shudders around them as the soldier hesitates, the explosions coming closer together now as the ship lurches in midair.

He clenches his jaw, pulling the shield from the Captain's arm and fixing it to his own. When he hefts the Captain and throws him over his shoulder, he has to stifle a cry at the phantom pain that tears through his stomach.

When he leaps from a hole in the hull, looks down into the depths of a far-off river with the wind snatching at any bit of him it can catch, he realizes this is familiar too.

As the water rushes up, he tucks himself and his cargo behind the shield, takes a deep breath, and holds on tight.

***

When Steve wakes in the hospital, Bucky's long gone. He tries not to let it bother him, but he'd really thought--he'd really _hoped_ that he'd gotten through there at the end. He knows something had shifted; Bucky had no longer been interested in killing him, just...possibly maiming him a little, only to shy away even from that. He'd gotten Steve off the helicarrier, out of the river and back to shore, and then--

Vanished. So completely Steve almost feels like he dreamed the entire thing, except that he knows better than to go that route again. He's tried giving up before he began, tried calling and hoping Bucky would find his way back. This time he isn't waiting; Steve's going after him.

Steve keeps tugging on the bond of their Name, but it's no longer like shouting down a tunnel, hoping to be heard. It's more like the most disgruntled game of Marco Polo ever, with Bucky not quite wanting to answer and not quite able to help himself. When Steve pulls, there's always an answering tug that gives him at least a direction to steer towards, though sometimes it's belated, or comes with a sharp, irritated jerk. If Bucky ever refuses to answer entirely, Steve promises himself--and swears to Sam--that he'll stop, or at least stay put until Bucky's ready to deal with him again.

He never has to put that resolution to the test. They've been city-hopping for months, occasionally running into the remains of the few Hydra cells that managed to stay under the radar, more often finding nothing at all. It's surprisingly peaceful. Steve may not know exactly where Bucky is, but he knows Bucky's close, in no distress, or at least nothing bad enough to pull Steve to his side. Steve and Sam even have a routine: in every new city, they find a decent hotel near a nice enough park where they can go for a morning run. If nothing explodes, Steve returns alone at noon with a bagged lunch and a book, finds an accessible bench where he can sit, and waits. Mostly he gets asked for his autograph; he tries to be patient with it.

He also tries not to get his hopes up whenever someone sits down beside him, but his heart still gallops in his chest every time.

Today is different. He just _knows_ , even before a painfully familiar voice on his right drawls, "I'm not sure all these deli meals are any better than fast food. It's not the same as it was in the old days, you know."

"I know." He wants to laugh for no reason, while at the same time, he's almost afraid to look. "But at least they taste different everywhere you go."

Bucky snorts but doesn't argue. Steve wants to ask if he's been eating, sleeping, if he's been taking care of himself. If he remembers more than he did before. If he's ready to come _home_.

He turns at last and finds Bucky watching him with the half-smile he still dreams about, all wry affection, torn between humor and rue. He's clean-shaven but hasn't cut his hair, is thinner than he was, but the eyes fixed on Steve are alert and anchored firmly in the present, with all the force of Bucky's personality shining through. He looks...God, he looks good, though breathing and present feels like a miracle by itself.

Bucky's eyes rove over him from head to toe, drinking in the sight of him, until they track back to his face and flick up to his ears. The still-lax corner of Bucky's mouth twitches as Steve fights the urge to duck his head, but he's too glad to see Bucky smiling at all to begrudge him this one. "You know, I've heard of sentimental _attachment_ ," Bucky says, all innocence, "but you might be taking this one too far."

"Jerk," Steve huffs, nudging Bucky gently in the side.

"Well, I mean. I guess they _are_ a collector's item by now."

"Oh my _God_ , Buck," Steve groans, shoving him again. He's faced down countless interviewers, random strangers on the street, his well-meaning friends' blind date candidates and Natasha herself in fact-finding mode, but only Bucky has the power to make him blush.

This time Bucky rocks with the push, but his low, rusty chuckle emerges unforced.

As his quiet laughter dies away, Bucky settles back against the park bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. His hands are tucked into the front pockets of a dark blue hoodie; with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, he could pass for anyone at all, at least at first glance. Steve knows to look closer, but the coiled tension simmering just below the surface is lazy and self-assured, the constant roving of Bucky's eyes over the park grounds familiar from as far back as Brooklyn. Bucky's always been on the lookout for trouble, because trouble's always done its best to find them first.

"Thought about what you said," Bucky says after a few beats of companionable silence. "'Bout my Name. It's not that it ever felt wrong," he tries to explain, which is when Steve realizes he's talking about _Ender_ , not the Name he was born with. "Maybe it did at first, but not after I forgot where it came from. It fit 'cause I always knew there was something missing."

"There doesn't have to be," Steve says quickly, only to be nailed in turn by Bucky's metal elbow, careful but firm. Right. Shut up and listen. He can do that.

"I thought about keeping it," Bucky admits, mouth twitching like he knows and understands the icy fist that settles in the pit of Steve's stomach at the thought. "Other Fighting pairs...even when they manage to land a restraint on me, they have a hard time keeping me down. I think it's 'cause they're fighting the Sacrifice for Ender, only he doesn't exist. Kind of like my Name."

Steve nods jerkily. He can see how that might be an advantage Bucky would be eager to keep, but hearing him refer to _that_ as his Name and not their own....

Bucky snorts, takes another fast look around the park, and pulls up his left sleeve, just enough to bare the three new letters added to his arm. These aren't etched; he might not have been able to find anything strong enough to mark up the metal, as tough as it is. They're painted on instead, in neat, matching block letters picked out in red, white and blue.

Bucky's already smirking even before Steve loses the battle with hilarity. It's the sort of ridiculous thing only Bucky--his Bucky--would do, and he turns his head to bury his face against Bucky's shoulder, muffling helpless laughter even as moisture prickles at the backs of his eyes.

Bucky huffs a quiet laugh of his own, reaching up to rest his right palm on the back of Steve's head, carding through his hair and deftly avoiding his ears. "Yeah, yeah. It may not be pretty--may not even be the best fit--but I thought we could give it a go. See how it works out."

"It looks fine, Buck," Steve croaks with a smile, letting himself bask in the comfort Bucky offers for a few moments more. "It looks _perfect_."

Bucky hunches his right shoulder and tugs his sleeve back down, sliding his hands back into his pockets. He's not looking at Steve, but he's smiling all the same: a pale shadow of his vanished grins, but Steve will take what he can get.

"Guess we'll find out," Bucky says, sitting with him peacefully until Steve finally works up the courage to stand, hold out his hand, and ask, "Ready to go home?"

***

There are things Bucky doesn't tell Steve.

During the months he's on his own, hunting Hydra but mostly himself, he engages with three different Fighting pairs, even though he could have avoided them easily enough. He finds out he still has magic locked behind his teeth, though his spells these days are all brute force, as unstoppable as his arm and just as subtle. He's no longer one thing or the other, switching back and forth between Fighter and Sacrifice as the situation calls for. He keeps that to himself.

He doesn't tell Steve that he doesn't feel like a Sacrifice. He can't imagine handing out an order Steve won't have already seen the need for. He doubts he'll be much good as a lightning rod for unfriendly spells, because as a Fighter, Steve is magnificent. The thing is, Bucky doesn't feel much like a Fighter anymore, either; he's grown too used to silence.

What he will never, ever tell Steve is that he hadn't felt like Defender, either, not until the moment he decided to stop running and let himself be caught. Steve may not require a Sacrifice, but he needs one, and Bucky's always had his back. Looking out for Steve is like slipping into a pair of comfortable old shoes, and if Bucky's relationship with their Name is a private, more curtailed philosophy than Steve's all-encompassing drive to protect, well, maybe there's a reason why he's the Sacrifice. Maybe he was always meant to be and just had to work that much harder to keep his idiot Fighter alive until Steve could pick up the slack.

There are a few things he does tell Steve. After everything else, they feel a little less scary now.

"Eh," Clint makes a show of muttering as he tosses a glossy magazine in Stark's lap. "That poll is rigged."

Stark sits up a little, which is an impressive display of abdominal strength, considering the depth and softness of the overstuffed couch cushions on Steve and Bucky's floor. The damn couch is going to _eat_ someone one of these days, and then they'll be sorry they ignored Bucky's warnings.

Like Steve, Bucky has taken up position on the loveseat. There's less room with the two of them there, but it's safer that way.

"The 'Hottest Avenger' issue is out already?" Tony asks, amused.

"Rigged," Clint insists, turning to Bucky with an earnest expression he doesn't trust for a second. "Every year they just alternate between Steve and Thor, Steve and Thor. What about Natasha?" he asks virtuously, in the tone of one far too modest to put himself forward.

Natasha snorts.

"I dunno," Bucky says, feeling daring. "Stark's pretty cute. I'd take him out, except Pepper kind of scares me."

" _Thank_ you," Tony says with an easy grin. There's something warm in his eyes, not like he's taking Bucky seriously, but like he knows Bucky isn't joking all the same. Like he knows how terrifying that is and has Bucky's six, just like the rest of them.

When he dares a glance over, Steve's startled look is already turning thoughtful, but Steve doesn't say anything just then. He just smiles, distracted but genuine, and asks, "So whose turn was it this year?"

Later, when they're dancing around each other in the kitchen, putting away the leftovers from dinner and loading the dishwasher at Bucky's insistence, Steve shoots him a sidelong glance, head ducked low over the glass he starts to wash by hand out of habit. "So, uh...I didn't know that. That you liked guys. Too?"

"You mean guys and dames both?" he asks for the sheer pleasure of watching Steve get flustered. It's a good look on him, no matter how big he gets.

"I mean...too."

Bucky lets his teasing smile fade into something gentler, taking a slow, deep breath. Maybe it's just a night for truths. "Yeah, in theory. Did a lot of looking," he explains at Steve's puzzled frown, "but the only girl I've been with was just for show, and the guy...well, I guess he wasn't interested."

Now Steve's just staring, glass and sponge forgotten in his hands. "I'm an idiot," he says faintly. "But you--you were out with a different girl every week!"

"Well, it's not like I could take _you_ dancing," Bucky blurts without thinking. "And it's not like they didn't have their ears at the end of the night! If they came with 'em, anyway," he adds in the interest of fairness.

Steve groans. "I thought--you--what you said. It sounded like you were making yourself _available_ ," Steve grumbles with a grimace of distaste.

Bucky scowls, perplexed. "I _was_."

"Not like you wanted to. Like you planned on doing your Sacrifice a favor and didn't want us getting arrested in the process."

Bucky's jaw drops. "A _favor_? Steven Grant Rogers," he snaps, closing the distance between them to poke a stiff finger into the center of Steve's chest. "Your ma would _box your ears_ if she caught you spouting that kind of chauvinistic crap. Or do you think I'm gonna be asking you for _favors_ now that you're _my_ Fighter, huh?"

Steve flushes, like maybe he's thought about it and not in a bad way. Bucky rolls his eyes and whaps him lightly upside the head. He even uses his right hand. "Yep," he says as Steve ducks away. "You're an idiot."

"Hey!"

"Let me spell it out for you," Bucky says, slow and deliberate. It's unexpectedly difficult not to smile despite his irritation. "I, Bucky Barnes, am crazy for you, Steve Rogers. Even though you're an idiot. And a punk," he adds with a huff as Steve flicks the sponge at him, cold droplets spattering his tee. "God alone knows why. So if you'd maybe like to lose those ears, _eighty years late_ \--"

"So romantic," Steve scoffs, grinning all the while. "I dunno, Buck. I hear they're a collector's item."

"Yeah?" Bucky asks, eyes drifting up to admire the confident set of Steve's dark blond ears, pricked forward in anticipation. They're so much a part of Steve by now, Bucky's actually going to miss them when they're gone. "Well, that's a coincidence, because I just happen to be a collector. Picky, though. There's only one pair I'm interested in."

"Better," Steve allows, ducking his head again as he tries not to laugh.

"Well?"

"Want me to spell it out?" Steve offers, a touch shyly.

He could, Bucky knows. He could imbue the words with power, _make_ them true beyond the shadow of a doubt.

"Nah," he says. "They say actions speak louder than words."

Somehow the half-scrubbed glass doesn't break when Steve sets it blindly aside and it goes toppling into the sink. The sponge hits the floor with a splat, Steve's wet hands soaking through Bucky's shirt as they settle on his right shoulder and on his waist, pulling him closer. This time Bucky waits, tilts his head up obligingly, and lets Steve kiss him the way he's always hoped for.

When he feels a gentle pull through the bond of their Name, it's second nature to give an answering tug, even though there's barely a breath of space between them. This time it doesn't mean _Where are you_?

This time it means _I'm here_.


End file.
